From the Shores of the Dead
by Mighty Rabbit
Summary: My very first fanfic, an Echo Bazaar one. Seemingly not a popular fandom for fiction. EB is an excellent browser based game and this is based on something that happened to my character on there. Rated T for containing referenced to madness and death.


I suppose I am not the first denizen of Fallen London to write a journal that is not expected to be read, and that tells of torturous ordeals and secrets best left uncovered.

I hope that It is best that this record does not find anything living or otherwise, lest they be the sort to destroy it before it is read. But, this is my journal. The words of 'Calico Jack', for that was the name that I took upon myself when I awoke in the dank confines of New Newgate Prison. It is the name of my new life, here in the Neath. I expect that none shall know my old name now, the one that I suckled at my mother's teet by, back in the land of spring breezes and apple trees.

Appropriately enough, it seems that I shall be taking _that_ secret to my grave. For you see, if you've placed your hands upon my journal, then you expect to find many delicious secrets. Indeed, I have many. In my time here I've been a petty thief, a grand larcenist, a honey-addled artist, an inveterate lover of both Adams and Eves, I've stood in Feducci's three rings, held audience with the Topsy King, fought the Eater-of-Chains in my nightmares and twice returned from the brink of madness with secrets and objects that ought not exist, and seem madness made manifest.

But this, my last entry is one I must write, as the secrets bound in my head, rotting though it may be. You see, in all my time what I truly valued was information. I sought the favour of the Revolutionaries and the Masters, and plenty more besides, for coin at first. A case of wine here, a drop of honey there. But eventually my hungers changed, my palette went unsatiated. I became the darling of society and scourge of the underworld so that I could acquire _information._ And the elusive truths of the Bazaar and the Masters were the juiciest morsels I could hope to uncover.

It seems to me that there was a certain metaphysicality of the dark wonders London has come to know in the past three decades hence. Blood and madness, that's where I thought it lie. Blood and madness. The answers are in dreams. The answers are in death.

These realms of the mind I have tried to access on manifold occasion, it all seemed for naught. I have ventured into the city's madhouse as one of its residents on no less than two occasions, and I dread not any nightmares. The strange plant in my house, or one of my homes, holds a sap I am sure to be poisonous, but once I ingested and later found myself transported to a serene forest of the unreal.

But I have found no answers in dreams, perhaps I would have yet, if only my patience had held. Instead, the impetuousness of youth overtook me. You will surely know the properties of a Nephite lens. I advise you, turn away now, rumour-monger and secret hoarders. This is no account of hidden loot. It can burn for all of my cares. What transpired concerns the lens. It is vital. I wish that ne'er had I thought of it.

You see, I killed myself, assured I could last long enough to revive myself. In these many months I have recovered from so many injuries most grievous, I thought a Real Death could be avoided through strength of will and prompt medical attention. Alas, it was not so. Perhaps I was not enough practiced in the art of true killing strikes, for so rarely is my malice moved so. And now I have a true death. I sit here, with other bodies that are of no import. The ferryman will do naught but grin at me and challenge me to games he knows only too well.

But _before _my death, I was not here. I was somewhere else. A terrible place of truths I cannot possibly comprehend. Not the terribleness of Clay Man's punch, that is a trite discomfort. Not of fleeing Jack-of-Smiles, he is merely an inconvenience. Not that of the madness of the impossible forest. This was a new terror, for it is hidden knowledge, that which I have so long now sought. And shall now never understand, even if I had the time to do so. I assume oblivion awaits me at the end of this ferry. If so, I am resigned to such, neither life nor true death present a more noble or agreeable choice now.

Now I shall attempt to relay on this page what I saw. I apologise this is so long in coming, but I've not a want but a need to relay it, and I'd hoped that my words would bore you far, far away and have this book, see it condemned to dust or fire. I stood in another forest. This one was pure black and white. At least, it held the appearance of a forest.

Were the trees pure black, and the white merely moonlight distributed so evenly between them? Or was the light London, and the blackness the Bazaar? Regardless, when I looked down at my feet, I saw I was standing on skulls. One such cranium so proudly claimed in mocking letters that THIS IS EDEN.

It was no heavenly garden I assure you, or if so, perhaps I shall renew my acquaintances with the devils, for churches are empty vestiges of false comfort that will unwittingly drag us all into an ever-life of holy darkness.

I never want to return there. Perhaps I shall feel no fire again, it shall now certainly be no surface heat of the sun. Perhaps I will. Perhaps the hearth of my home. Perhaps the tortures of Hell, if the tales are to be believed. But that shall be no Hell for me. Pain shall be a respite. I know things man should not, _can not_. And still I hunger for more. Perhaps if I ever return home I shall just addle my mind with honey till I can think no more.

But there are still answers! Some dark, deep part of me I am sure holds no connection to my mind or soul hungers for them. I must find them. In the dreams. In the blood. For the hunger. Gnawing, biting, crippling...

Whatever happened to those old days,spend lazing in the arms of a struggling artist?


End file.
